Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: The Effect Of Violence On Domestic Social Organization

University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

Even today, as one watches the ongoing destruction of historic cities and cultural heritage in conflict zones, there emerge pressing questions about how people persist through times of political upheaval, how political violence reshapes lives, and how the act of survival, in itself a material phenomenon, reshapes our understanding of violence. With these pressing concerns in mind, doctoral candidate, Ms. Tiffany Cain, and Dr. Richard Leventhal, both of the University of Pennsylvania, examine how political upheaval and war impact civilian spaces and everyday life in conflict zones. Archaeology, as a framework of analysis, emphasizes attention to the material culture of past societies distant and recent, and, lends itself particularly well to the study of the daily lives of people who often go unaccounted for in the documentary record. The researchers aim to provide a framework for recognizing and interpreting the material culture of political violence in spaces not typically associated with conflict - specifically, marginalized civilian settlements rather than battlefields and military forts. This research contributes to the broader anthropological understanding of the social and material processes of violent conflict by re-centering the experiences of ordinary people in its analysis. This dissertation project is situated within a community-based research initiative in Quintana Roo, Mexico that trains local participants in archaeological methods and research design as well as historic preservation planning and implementation. This program positions archaeology as a key component of a sustainable development plan for the community and actively contributes to the informal education of local Maya community members through close collaborative programming. This project's investigations are concerned primarily with archaeological remains generated by the Caste War of Yucatán, or Maya Social War (1847-1901). The Caste War was a fifty four-year episode of violent conflict between a broadly defined Maya working class and Spanish creole upper class. The insurrection left many abandoned towns, haciendas, and ranches in the once thriving frontier landscape of what is now central Quintana Roo, Mexico. Conflict archaeology, a growing thematic field within the discipline, has brought the material analysis of modern warfare to the forefront of today's research concerns. Still, ordinary towns, settlements, and civilian spaces have not often been the focus of archaeological investigations of violent conflict. This research takes a novel approach to investigating the material culture of war by evaluating (1) how violent conflict impacts civilian spaces and (2) what its material consequences are for daily life in conflict areas. The investigators assess these questions by exploring how two processes commonly associated with conflict - the construction of defensive structures and regional abandonment - materialize. By examining the remains of unique settlement fortification practices observed in the study area as well as the association between rapid abandonment and the high density of culturally-valued grinding stones (metates) left in deserted settlement areas, the researchers will demonstrate how these marginalized communities on the frontier of 19th century Yucatan mobilized local knowledge and common practice in an effort to collectively persist in the face of large-scale violent conflict.